The optimizers

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Die Optimierer is the dystopian debut novel by the German writer Theresa Hannig from 2017.

It is set in Munich in 2052 and is about Samson Freitag, a young man who works for a surveillance state .

action

The European Union has long since collapsed, but there is the Federal Republic of Europe , which consists of Germany and other states. As part of the so-called optimal welfare economy, the state watches over and decides that people take on the roles intended for them in society, but also ensures that old and other people who are not very useful for economic purposes are excluded or even driven into suicide become. People's everyday life is characterized by a high degree of surveillance by government agencies.

Samson Freitag, a young man who is a so-called life advisor in the field, also represents the state and its interests. In contrast to his parents and his girlfriend Melanie, for example, he is ideologically on the side of the state, even if he suffers from his existence, which includes wearing a so-called communication lens in his eye, which is painful for him. Because of the different views, but also a general lack of common ground, Melanie separates from him. When he happened to find out that Ercan Böser - who is one of his previous customers and is now the leader of the optimizing party running in the federal elections - gave false information during life counseling, he reported this to his superiors.

One day, Samson learns that one of his last clients has committed suicide after consulting. Despite his conviction that he made no mistake and acted according to the recommendation of the agency's own software, he is suspended from his job and is given psychiatric treatment. For the time being he loses various rights, including the right to reproduce. An underground organization that is critical of the government and the system wants to win him over for an assassination attempt on Chancellor candidate Ercan Böser, but he refuses, citing his hope that the system will save him. After he went to sleep on the eve of the federal elections, he didn't wake up again until three weeks later. He soon realizes that he has since died as a human and now lives on as a robot. Ercan Böser won the elections and rules in a dictatorial manner.

Motifs

The author said in an interview that she understood the novel politically and wanted to show "where it can lead when more and more data is collected", namely a loss of freedom if, for example, an extremist party comes to power.

reception

In a review for Deutschlandfunk Kultur , Elena Gorgis compared the novel with George Orwell 's 1984 work , in whose tradition it stands. The slogan used in the novel “Everyone in his own place!” Reminds us of the cynical sentence “ Each has his own ” at the gate of the Buchenwald concentration camp . Gorgis praised the fact that The Optimizer was "an important novel in our time". Hannig picks up the readers where they are and skilfully steers towards a terrifying end. She succeeds in bringing Orwell's topic of a totalitarian regime into the present without being instructive, and thus in a clever way to warn against the careless acceptance of new technologies.

In a review for the radio station WDR 4 , Stefan Keim said that Hannig created "a fascinating world" in the novel, "that is close to our reality." It was "an intelligent, thoughtful novel about feelings in a technically highly developed time."

In the online magazine Literaturkritik.de , the reviewer Rolf Löchel rated the novel as “not overly original” and “another dystopia of well-known design”. However, the author has some "interesting ideas" - less important for the plot - such as the "wikification" of issues in question by the state, which contribute to reading pleasure. The narrative style of the novel is "fluid and without fancy metaphors" and at the same time without "special aesthetic pleasure". Overall, the novel is not a masterpiece, but a "quite passable debut".

At the 2016 Frankfurt Book Fair , Hannig received the first Stefan Lübbe Prize for the manuscript of the novel . At the Leipzig Book Fair 2018 the novel was awarded the Seraph Fantastic Literature Prize for the best debut.

expenditure

continuation

A novel was published in 2019 as a sequel to The Optimizer under the title The Imperfect .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Florian J. Haamann: A gloomy future , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung from 28 Sep. 2017, accessed June 9, 2018
  2. ↑ Elena Gorgis: Welcome to the digital dictatorship! , in: Deutschlandfunk Kultur on November 7, 2017, accessed on June 9, 2018
  3. ↑ Stefan Keim: "Die Optimierer" by Theresa Hannig ( Memento from March 25, 2018 in the Internet Archive ), in: WDR 4 from October 24, 2017
  4. ↑ Rolf Löchel: Optimalwohlökonomie statt Globitalismus , in: Literaturkritik.de of March 23, 2018, accessed on June 9, 2018
  5. ↑ Theresa Hannig is the first winner of the Stefan Lübbe Prize. Retrieved July 4, 2018 .
  6. ↑ Science fiction on the rise - Fantastic Academy presents the winning titles of the SERAPH 2018 - Fantastic Academy e. V. Accessed on July 4, 2018 (German).